The Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3776, 1 April 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1875.

Is there a sadder thing than seeing beau* tiful men and women going to the devil? We need not wait for a reply. It is this sadness that has nerved the energies of the great enthusiasts in the past. It is this that has led men to quit father and mother, lover, wife, home, country, and preach glad tidings in pestilential lands. It is this that had led men and women to the stake, and it is the sadness of this sight>hich is yet a motive power in our midst. It comes across us in all our wanderings. No chink in the most permanent walls that social usages have surrounded us with, that is open, but what ever and anon lets in a beam of this question. If we have an Athenasum meet* mg, with its usual concomitant of an ecotisrAr “5 B P lutterer > who defames men better than himself, it is there. What is it that creates a theological bias 7 What makes some of the committee vote for the exclusion of papers but a remembrance of this question ? They no doubt imagine that all that do not wear their spec-i-"ee “atnre and nature’s Gcd as they think they see them-are on the road to perdition. Alas that a perfect belief, a true opinion is yet valued more thau a pure life ! But while our citizens-well meaning ones, no doubt—are roused on the merits of a trumpery newspaper, that if read or admitted to our Athenasum would not affect us as a community one whit, they ignore in silence this question with which we have headed our article. Everything goes to make up a man. as everything goes to make up a nation! civen as one poet says :

V a °]dld™nt forth evei y day, and becam« fc - b36Ct h * looked Up ° n fchat ob i« ot he Ho^ d tkat ? b j ecfc became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for manv years, or for stretching cycle, of years. y This is saying, in rhythmical prose, that circumstances make a man. Now-a-days as a writer has said we live in antiquity’ The circumstances include not only the fTnMt BU Tho n ? DB^f bßfc they reacb to SLS k if Th hereditary principle is recog. f • T / W8 wanfc to understand the insti tu.iutis of a nation, or the reason for a Jaw °r the existence of some anomaly, we must t^ 6 “^P 48 *. »nd out of some of their undeveloped myths discover the origin of our present institutions. Here, them?? tw£h fied he V iu iting of fch « “ iniquities of the father upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation.” The truth of lid °TS! ?dI f ei ? i 8 proved b y B °ience: and all this leads us to put the question w hich we started, "Is there a sadder thing than seeing beautiful men and women going to the devil ?” This is a question which reaches to the future as well as answers the present. We use the phrase going to the devil” in a secular sense when 7n fut T ty ; . We do “ok venture on an abstruse theological question, as the tEPnoS? 6Ve # n + u ha e . xlßtence of » prince of the power of the air. We mean by the phrase a life wasted, affections blunted, moral wnßoiousaess deadened, intellect stunted. What spectacle sadder; and when this waste, tasmiS 8, ‘ha deadness, this stunting are transmitted-—when the children share the siddeJ ? d f f“i tles . of tfa « ir parents, what again sadder? And yet we do nothing. Thoasso-

Let a youth go to a plaoa of amusement, what does he hear? He may hear fine music, and his soul may be touched by hearmg virtuous sentiments uttered, but what meets his gone ?—vice, debauchery, prostitutiou It is so at all gpsctaclea. The evil seems irremediable. Those who pay can take a seat. Nor, indeed, were persons of questionable morality excluded, weald the evil be less, because veiled. Then, again, see what drinking and tippling habits sur. round the youth ; what gambling there is ; what immorality he hears of; what monstrous offenses are reported; what charges of immorality circulated. And the youth hears and sees all this; and, moreover, sees little enthusiasm fighting against the evils—little of that fire with which the knights of old fought for the good and true ; and then we wonder at this one and that one throwing culture behind them and finding gratifies--10n“ lowest of carnal pleasures—in gambling, in drinking. We must purge our cities. We do not expect good sound morality where there is an unhealthy house, choked sewers, fever stews. So need we not expect the evolution of the good if the surroundings are bad. Until there is a horror of sensualism as great as of that of cholera, not till then will the evil cease. And this sasness of seeing yonng and beautiful men and women—persons that might he renowned and revered in our midst—falling lower and lower, with no arm outstretched to save them, will continue until the surroundings are altered. This must be the beginning of reform. Do we expect to see the white lilies, and tke many colored dahlias, and the beantiful roses blossoming m our gardens without the requisite conditions? There must be soil, and care, and, freedom from weeds. Society may be likened to a garden, and how full of weeds the garden is! And yet men and women will pule and cry at our men and women setting out with rapid strides to perdition, and pray for them-but they will not arise and change the conditions. Does one expect to see a reform by ballot boxes ! £)o: these are only a means to an end; so it has been said, “Faith without works is dead.** We want the works. We want the workers to recognise the importance, nay, the necessity of changing the conditions. It is now, thanks to total abstainers, thought disgraceful to be seen drunk. Is there no other thing done that should be characterised by the community as disgraceful? And then consider the numbers whose conduct creates a sadness to thinkers who are viewing our social state. Contemplative sadness wont a °'* h yP®°hrondriao morality. We rt-^e• energetic fighting-the a P wt. l * lß Vi 18 thafc can against the flesh, the world, and the devil.

Tha Colonial Government has given instructions to the Agent-General to largely reduce the number of immigrants to be sent out during the winter months. T he ‘Guardian,’ yesterday, had a paragraph intended, we suppose, te be a joke at the expense of the ‘Evening Star.’ We have tried m vain to find something funny m it, bub cannot; and shall feel obliged by our critical contemporary telling us what to

J here is in Napier a compositor who must be a relative of the individual whom Max Muller immortalised in the preface to his Art work. The Napier critic in a theatrical notice wrote her lover became cognisant of the extent of day there was in the idol he had worshipped” but a talented member of the bcal typographical society altered the horaewMppßd!” ! * ‘ ,the “** h j» “ In view of the contingencies of tranship, ment and detention, and the fact that they have provided for the hatching of the total number expected to arrive, the Southland Acehmatisation Society have resolved that it is not desirable to make any partition of the ova, expected per Timaru, and the Secretary was directed to reply to the Christchurch Society accordingly. The arrangements for the reception of the ova, daily expected, are reported to be complete. Very few in Dunedin ever saw, but many have doubtless beard of that little personage who was even a greater curiosity than his fellow dwarf, Tom Thumb-we allude to Commodore Nutt. The Commodore has gone the way of all flesh, and his funeral at Paris on November 9 was attended by the members of the American show in which he had been exhibiting. First came a giant, a little over seven feet high (the celebrated Chang)next, the travelling agent of Commodore JN utt; then an American by the name of Gibbs and known as ‘The Skeleton’; after whom a woman with three arms; and last, but not f ™ r tra med dogs, the Intimate friends of the “ Commodore, ’ r who would not appear in public without them. ** At a meeting of the Dunedin Presbytery yesterday, authority was given to the Vest Taien congregation to call upon ministers of the Preajiytenr (if necessary) in rotation, to supply the WestTaieri pulpit; and the following resolution was unanimously adopted : —“ That this Presbytery, in sanctioning the translation of the Rev. William Gillies, desires to express its high appreciation of his services in connection with the Presbyterian Church in Otago, his uniform seal in the discharge of all duties entrusted to him, and the deep souse loss whioh our'Churoh at large will sustain through his removal The Presbytery prays that the Lord may prosper him in his future labors, and that he may,long be spared in a sphere of usefulness m connection with the Church to whioh he has been called.”

A good Story comes to us from Welling, ton, where it may be explained are two large farms, the principal members of which are relatives, were once partners, and now like n r ot^ ao m°S e L over well A “ember of one of the Wellington fire brigades died lately leaving a widow and family none too well provided for, and in their behalf a charitable appeal was made. A collector for this fund called upon Mr N , expecting a pound, but to his astonishment received a cheque for L2O. This unexpected liberality was communicated to a third person, who said to the collector, “ Now go to J a late partner <cf N , and write me down an ass it ho d*es not give you more.” Ho did so, and took good care to let J know what N—~ gave. J quietly called his boy and ordered him to write a cheque for L3fl.

“East Lynne," which was produced at the Princess’s last night to as excellent attendance in all parts olthe theatre. Miss Ma^u? ow - ard . was * as we a'lt.oipatcd she would be m characters more worthy of her abilities, seen to greater advantage than as GabneUe in the • • Geneva Cross. ” We have om Lady Isabels of various degrees of merit ranging from Mrs Steele’s to a representative who does not deserve to be named. and« Miss Howard’s will take rank among some of the best. Where foroe is required She uses it with judgment, and in pathetic parts her emotion' is never overstrained. Inaeed, the charm of her acting is its naturalness, and that her audience thought ?° • evidenced bv the applause avished upon her at the close of each act, and particularly the third and fourth acts. Of he rest, it is sufficient to say that Miss WUlia was Barbara Hare; MrsStoneham decidedly good as Corney j Mr Steele at his bp?t fi rT ßt^M rchibald oarl y le ; and that a better Lord Mount Severn than Mr Musgrave one does not hope to see hero. “ The Lady L-di/fu 58 ’ fc^ e .“ Lo «i of a Lover,” and Mr John Moran between the pieces (his Anal apSrimm Ce r m * I)u “? din) the pro gramme for to-ijight.

A rather important ease was heard in the Melbourne County Court lately, when a Mrs Naomi Parsons smed Henry Sims, of Footsoray, for LIOO, under the following circum-stances;-During her husband’s life-time a policy was effected by which the assurance company agreed to pay Mr or Mrs Parsons LIOO on the death of either of them. This policy the husband deposited with Sims as part security for the payment of a debt of L2OO, and Sinn very naturally declined to pay the widow LIOO. For her it was argued, and successfully so, too, that her husband had no right to dispose <>E her property. Judge Cope agreed that under the Married Women’s Property Statute such w. sthe ease, and returned a verdict for LIOO, wi hj Ll4 I4s costs, the damages to be reduced to is on the policy being given up to the plaintiff.

. est Thanksgiving service will be held In All Saints* Church this evening at 7.30 p.m. The meeting of the Union of Otago Temple, No. 2, has been postponed until Friday. 9th of April, ’